Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:57 pm
No, it doesn't. It shows that they prefer grapes. That's all.

But let's pretend you're right: that capuchins have some refined sense of morality. Humans obviously have a much more refined sense of morality. So then, Determinism is not true, in either case. Both capuchins and humans have freedom in respect to their moral conclusions, and humans obviously have more freedom in that area. Is that the argument you're trying to make?

Thus, your argument does not serve any conclusion that Compatiblism works. It just doesn't work...even by your own argument.

You're the one who prates endlessly about "instinct", which is a form of determinism. I think both humans and other animals have free will, regardless of whether their choices are inevitable.

Alexiev wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:04 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:57 pm
No, it doesn't. It shows that they prefer grapes. That's all.

But let's pretend you're right: that capuchins have some refined sense of morality. Humans obviously have a much more refined sense of morality. So then, Determinism is not true, in either case. Both capuchins and humans have freedom in respect to their moral conclusions, and humans obviously have more freedom in that area. Is that the argument you're trying to make?

Thus, your argument does not serve any conclusion that Compatiblism works. It just doesn't work...even by your own argument.

You're the one who prates endlessly about "instinct", which is a form of determinism.

"Prates endlessly"? I mentioned it once, and then others took up the subject. I have no particular interest in it...hardly an "endless prating."

The topic here is above, at the top of each message and at the top of the page: "Compatiblism." And the implication of your whole argument is that Compatiblism does not work, with which I agree.

So far, so good.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:28 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:21 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:05 pm
Okay: if the "material" is different, or "not the same" between dead and alive brains, where is this "mind" stuff located? What is it made of?

I'm not postulating mind stuff, or saying it doesn't exist.

Well, you say that dead brains are "different" in "materials" than live ones. I just want to know what "materials" are being added or subtracted; for that, surely would be the "materials" to which you allude.

I already gave a list of material differences between dead brains and living brains. You responded to that post. I later pointed out that functions stop with other material objects, like computers, if you change the ongoing processes in the materials and make them no longer ongoing. You stop the flow of blood to a brain - and dead brains all have stopped blood flow either as cause or effect - and the materials in the brain are no longer functioning the same. There is less O2 in the brain - a key material difference. There are others. Processes that depend on certain materials stop. Tissues change. Chemical processes stop and change. As long as something key interferes with the materials in the brain, the matter starts changeing and is chenage or the changes cause the changes. Your assumptions were confused.

I need to go back to not communicating with you. I would guess you are posting in conscious good faith, but it might as well be concious bad faith for my experience. You could have interacted with the key part of my earlier post, but you opted not to. So, any weakness in your post seems not to exist for these long avoidance filled roamings and near contentless posts on your part. You haven't even made the argument just assertions and implying/asking. Perhaps you'll get around to it and then there will be more games.

Back on ignore.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2024 11:55 pm Click.

Yes, I do get that a lot. And, sure, it may well be because the points others raise about me here are largely true. No way in hell I would ever deny that even if I was bursting at the seams with autonomy.

On the other hand, it might instead be this: that the arguments I make in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics...that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...disturbs those here who [to me] seem hell bent on routing philosophy in the general direction of their very own One True Path.

Though, sure, if I had access to Anton Chigurh, I'd bring him here with a fist full of quarters.

Or it might be that you can't or don't want to read people, so even though there are plenty of people including me, who have similar takes to yours (that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...), to you everyone is an unhinged objectivist.

Really, note what I posted here that led you to believe that to me everyone is an unhiged objectivst.

Instead, I suggest that some embody objectivism becauue they were indoctrinated as children to believe that what they were told about the world around them is in fact the objective truth. Or, instead, given one or another set of uniquely personal experiences, they have come as adults to champion one moral and political and philosophical path [set of prejudices] over all the others.

As for me? Nope -- click -- it's definitely not that. On the contrary, there is nothing I want more than to come upon someone here [or there] able to convince me that those assumptioins are not only wrong but that in fact their own set of assumptions really, really are true.

That's often my point as well. Human logic exists because we exist. We invented language in order to connect particular words to particular worlds...in order to sustain what might be deemed "the least dysfunctional" communities. Some things are said to be logical but different people have different renditions of where to draw the line here between being logical and being rational and being moral.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amI don't draw a line, to me everything is logical so far on the ultimate level and I can show it. But a genuine beginning wouldn't be.

If you can show it, right? And making what may well be a crucial distinction between logic in the either/or world and logic in the is/ought world. The moral objectivists often insist there is no distinction, however. Just as doctors can be more or less rational in performing abortions, they tell us, ethicists can be more or less rational in regard to the morality of it.

What difference does it make what any of us claim to believe "in our heads" about these things? If, in other words, we can't back the claims up with truly substantive and substantial and sustained evidence. My own main focus revolves more around those who [to me] discuss meaning, morality and metaphysics as though they were discussing things that [to them] clearly do seem to be applicalbe to all of us in the either/or world.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amThen why are you talking to me, my point here was that compatibilism is by definition incoherent, and I think my argument is substantial enough.

Okay, but do you also acknowledge at least the possibility that in defining compatibilism as you do, you were never able to opt freely to define it otherwise "then and there"?

Then those here who insist that compatibilism can be defined objectively...but only as they do. If, for example, you want the one and the only philosophically correct definition.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amHey if you don't care what people believe in their heads, then why are you on a witch hunt against objectivism?

What I care about is the extent to which someone claiming to believe this or that "in their head" is, in fact, able to prompt me to stick around for more. Why? Because their argument does contain the sort of evidence that, say, jolts me in a whole new dierection. Like, say, up out of this fucking hole. The sort of "just the facts, Ma'am" assessment able to provide the sort of empirical/experiential/experimental evidence that will bring me back to the comfort and consolation I once nestled down into for years myself.

Welcome to Flatland 2.0? Or will someone here insist that, 4 dimensions or 5 dimensions or 10 dimensions, it's all the same. In other words, stuff like that has little or nothing to do with the fact that "here and now" they embody their very own definition of free will.

Unless, of course, they were never able not to define it that way.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amApparent free will in 5 dimensions could make a world of difference.

On the other hand, apparently, those of us in the 4 dimensional world will just have to wait for the day when science and/or philosophy finally is able to establish that we do or do not have free will.

"In philosophy, Occam's razor...is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle of parsimony or the law of parsimony (Latin: lex parsimoniae). Attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian, it is frequently cited as Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, which translates as "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity", although Occam never used these exact words. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "The simplest explanation is usually the best one." wiki

Again -- click -- this is one of those expressions posters here will sometimes use in order to encompass what they deem to be the next best thing to objectivism. Or, perhaps, the next best thing to God?

In other words, what do you know, their own understanding of determinism and compatibilism reflect the simplest explanation!

On the other hand, if we start with the assumption that the human brain itself is just more matter, and that all matter obeys particular "immutable laws", why not conclude that the simplest explanation is determinism.

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amIf you have a better tool for philosophy than Occam's razor then present it. If you have no tool then philosophy is pointless because you have infinitely many explanations/takes for anything, and they are all equally wrong.

Actually, my point revolves more around the assumption that given free will, the tools available to philosophers -- http://www.philosophyideas.com/files/in ... osophy.pdf -- appear to exhibit profound limitations in regard to conflciting goods.

And, if there is no free will, then all of these tools would appear [to me "here and now"] no less manifestations of the only possible reality.

Okay, but are you hard enough a determinist?

Do you or do you not believe that everything you think, feel, say and do [in your day-to-day interactions with others] is a reflection of the only possible reality?

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amWhat?? That's not a question of determinism, but of 4D/5D philosophy or multiverse theory etc.

Right, I forgot. You or your brain are able to make these metaphysical distinctions between determinism and dimensions in such a way that, what, you "just know" the philosophical difference between them?

Okay, in regard to the above, were you able to post anything here other than what your brain compelled you to post?

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 amIn which sense ffs

How about this: in the sense you are able to then demonstrate that what you do believe in your head here is demonstrable empirically, experientially and [along with scientists] experimentally such that it will all finally be resolved.

Instead, in my view, we get more of the same:

Atla wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 5:17 am4D philosophy, absolute metaphysical FREE WILL sense - NO
4D philosophy, everyday psychological choices sense - YES

You can't deviate from the universal determinism, but whatever everyday choices you make, is also part of the universal determinism.

Note to others:

You tell me how, if you concur with this, it becomes applicable to either the behaviors you choose or in regard to how you react to the behaviors that others choose.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:24 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:28 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:21 pm I'm not postulating mind stuff, or saying it doesn't exist.

Well, you say that dead brains are "different" in "materials" than live ones. I just want to know what "materials" are being added or subtracted; for that, surely would be the "materials" to which you allude.

I already gave a list of material differences between dead brains and living brains.

Nope. You didn't. What are the "materials"?

Are you really going to suggest that oxygen = mind? (If it did, "air head" would be a compliment. )

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:44 pm Really, note what I posted here that led you to believe that to me everyone is an unhiged objectivst.

On the other hand, it might instead be this: that the arguments I make in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics...that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...disturbs those here who [to me] seem hell bent on routing philosophy in the general direction of their very own One True Pat

Instead, I suggest that some embody objectivism becauue they were indoctrinated as children to believe that what they were told about the world around them is in fact the objective truth. Or, instead, given one or another set of uniquely personal experiences, they have come as adults to champion one moral and political and philosophical path [set of prejudices] over all the others.

And when you are in your frequent cataloguing mode, you use Wikipedia to make lists that include a majority of the members of the human race. When it is pointed out that many people with a wide range of beliefs, including those like Atla who share your beliefs on your pet issues, have the same reaction to you.

I think it's quite fair to consider hell bent to indicate unhinged. And you aim your judgments at most people on earth. And anyone who has an issue with how you post, you frame and necessarily afraid of your ideas and you as some threat to their fragile denials of their own, deep down belief in what you are saying.

As for me? Nope -- click -- it's definitely not that. On the contrary, there is nothing I want more than to come upon someone here [or there] able to convince me that those assumptioins are not only wrong but that in fact their own set of assumptions really, really are true.

That might also be true. It's not however mutually exclusive with seeing objectivsits and those critical of you as unhinged.

And whatever dasein has led you to have your beliefs about other people or the people you quote, it never seems to include reason. And least the justifications are there.

You justify other things, yes., but not these.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:44 pm Really, note what I posted here that led you to believe that to me everyone is an unhiged objectivst.

Instead, I suggest that some embody objectivism becauue they were indoctrinated as children to believe that what they were told about the world around them is in fact the objective truth. Or, instead, given one or another set of uniquely personal experiences, they have come as adults to champion one moral and political and philosophical path [set of prejudices] over all the others.

As for me? Nope -- click -- it's definitely not that. On the contrary, there is nothing I want more than to come upon someone here [or there] able to convince me that those assumptioins are not only wrong but that in fact their own set of assumptions really, really are true.

Err.. so you want to be an objectivist more than anything, just the right kind of objectivist? Forget that, humans are limited beings with limited knowledge, there's no objective knowledge for us. There is no human whose set of assumptions are really, really true.

Unless there is a big, universal miracle going on, but I wouldn't count on that.

Okay, but do you also acknowledge at least the possibility that in defining compatibilism as you do, you were never able to opt freely to define it otherwise "then and there"?

Then those here who insist that compatibilism can be defined objectively...but only as they do. If, for example, you want the one and the only philosophically correct definition.

Irrelevant, I could define compatibilism differently, I can make everyday choices. Definitions are subjectively/intersubjectively established. There is no such thing as the one and the only philosophically correct definition.

What I care about is the extent to which someone claiming to believe this or that "in their head" is, in fact, able to prompt me to stick around for more. Why? Because their argument does contain the sort of evidence that, say, jolts me in a whole new dierection. Like, say, up out of this fucking hole. The sort of "just the facts, Ma'am" assessment able to provide the sort of empirical/experiential/experimental evidence that will bring me back to the comfort and consolation I once nestled down into for years myself.

If that comfort was created by the early-life illusion of objectivism, certainty, certain knowledge, then forget about it. Imo the best you can do is what I do, quasi-certainty using quasi-objectivism using Occam's razor. I find it "good enough", psychologically comforting enough though.

Actually, my point revolves more around the assumption that given free will, the tools available to philosophers -- http://www.philosophyideas.com/files/in ... osophy.pdf -- appear to exhibit profound limitations in regard to conflciting goods.

And, if there is no free will, then all of these tools would appear [to me "here and now"] no less manifestations of the only possible reality.

I've no idea what you mean here. The philosophical human tools of this reality are the philosophical human tools of this reality, but that has nothing to do with this reality necessarily being the only possible reality - why would it?

How about this: in the sense you are able to then demonstrate that what you do believe in your head here is demonstrable empirically, experientially and [along with scientists] experimentally such that it will all finally be resolved.

You can't deviate from the universal determinism, but whatever everyday choices you make, is also part of the universal determinism.

Don't know what you mean, what do you mean by "resolve", that looks like an objectivist idea. But what I said is consistent with everything I know about the world and I can demonstrate any part of it. I claim to have a consistent universal philosophy (but it's uncertainty-based, not objectivist), so far people on philosophy forums couldn't make a dent in it.

Before we move on, I want to briefly mention the practice of putting down violent animals. Some might argue that this is the result of ascribing moral responsibility to animals, but I would say that it rather for the purpose of getting rid of the danger than from a sense of justice.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 6:56 pmThat's how holding someone/thing responsible works in real life. It's an attempt to control "danger".

Putin invaded Ukraine. He saw the West hell bent on keeping the USSR fractured and fragmented. So, in regard to these "external" and the "internal" factors in his brain, the rest is history? What particular behaviors on his part here can be linked largely to things beyond his control? And what part to things that he and others freely choose to pursue

Next up: Hamas invades Israel.

Then the part where some behave in ways that pose extreme danger to others. But in acting as they do, they were never able not to. Any more then those who react to these dangers were ever able to react other than as they must.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 6:56 pmPeople who do horrible things because they are compelled to do it at gunpoint, are not held responsible because they are not likely to do such things again.

Again, as though arguing this is really all that need be done to make it true. As though brain tumors, head injuries and other mental afflictions don't already reconfigure the behaviors of millions "beyond their control". And even if we do live in a free world universe. Stuff unfolding inside their brains that prompt them to think, feel, say and do any number things that would have perhaps been unthinkable before the affliction.

It's just that some need to convince themselves that it's not their brain and their brain alone in command. Yes, any number of things in our lives are beyond our control, but surely not everything.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 6:56 pm A mentally ill arsonist has to be restrained. A murderer has to be restrained. A vicious dog has to be restrained. And killing them is a guarantee that they won't repeat their behavior.

So, the arsonist and the murderer are compelled to set fires and to kill people. But "somehow" when we find this out our own reaction is not compelled at all? Same brains but somehow different results?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2024 6:56 pmJust as an arsonist who is not mentally ill If you don't "hold them responsible" then they could do it again and again.

Same thing. They will do it again and again because they are compelled to. But then when we act to hold them responsible and to punish them again and again, that's...just different?

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2024 8:37 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2024 3:07 am Now, back to guy with the hammer...?

I wrote a lot about the guy with the hammer. If you did also, please link me to the post where you did. If not, feel free to write about him and what I said and argued. To find the post it's in that post with the links I presented when you were asking Phyllo, for some reason, to do your work for you.

As I noted to Phyllo, yes, that does sound familiar. But when you are posting in 3 different philosophy forums, it's easy to lose track of what you posted and where. Not that any of this can in and of itself be pinned down as autonomous or not.

And all I asked of others here is that -- click -- if their own memory is still largely intact, would they please attempt to note what they themselves believe you were attempting to convey with that example.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2024 8:44 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2024 3:07 am On the other hand, what the fuck is wrong with you? You've been "exposing" me now for over 10 years. Why not just declare victory and move on to the actual serious philosophers here. I mean, it's not like they are ever likely to run out of clouds.

So, many flaws in such a small space. 1) declaring victory is an empty gesture to me. It's empty when you and Satyr and VA do it.

That I am able to reduce you down to "retorts" like this over and over again merely reinforces my own assumption that I have now crept so far inside your head you are actually displaying signs of...panic?

Now, VA informed me that he would never respond to anything I post here. Why? Because in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics he and his didactic -- pedantic? -- ilk are, in my view, everything that makes philosophy increasingly more irrelevant to actual human interactions.

I would advise him and you and others to start here: https://www.amazon.com/Fashionable-Nihi ... 0791454304

On the other hand -- click, click -- pick two:

1] if I do say so myself
2] unless of course I'm wrong

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 17, 2024 8:44 amIt's like adding to an argument 'and I am correct.' The silliness of which doesn't seem to stop people from doing it. Your version, the 'they are scared of becoming like me and I am chipping away at their.....' is just as silly as Satyr's and VA's constantly saying he proved or demonstrated something, often instead of even trying to. 2) I do interact with other people here, so I don't understand why you present these as hinged to each other. 3) Again, you just assume that all I want is to be up in the clouds when that isn't the case.

Well -- click -- that is about what I would expect from you. To actually compare my own rooted existentially in dasein philosophy pertaining to meaning, morality and metaphysics with those two should tell others far, far, far more about you than it does about me.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 10:04 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:24 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 8:28 pm
Well, you say that dead brains are "different" in "materials" than live ones. I just want to know what "materials" are being added or subtracted; for that, surely would be the "materials" to which you allude.

I already gave a list of material differences between dead brains and living brains.

Nope. You didn't. What are the "materials"?

Are you really going to suggest that oxygen = mind? (If it did, "air head" would be a compliment. )

You're not countering my point. And if you read the earlier post you'd see that oxygen was one many material changes. You seem to think clumps of parts lead to functions.

The toaster is unplugged and the owner thinks that it has lost its mind.
And he turns to his wife and say 'Oh, really, you think that a toaster that knows how to heat bread, can't do it now because of those tiny little electrons.

You are the kind of arguer who keeps his arguments gestural. One line 'ripostes'. You aim at one piece and poorly because if you actually mounted an argument, you have to deal with how the arrangement of matter + plus missing substances can make incredible differences in function. You also add in smugness. I doubt you're canny enough to plan the effects of this, but what this kind of self-congratulatory idiocy does is distraction.

When people react to your games like this,you used to ask if they were women. Perhaps you've stopped the sexism in this. If so, congratulations. But you've kept the format of your 'arugments.'

You are at the implicit assertion level, coupled with an appeal to incredulity.

The balloon with hydogen and oxygen gasses should be biggern than the one with the same amount of matter in the form of water. It's the same matter. you cry, according to you physicalists..

Change slightly the arrangement of amino acids in brain proteins and you get Alzheimers or Prion disease. All the matter is the same, but it has changed arrangement at microscopic levels.

Change the arrangment of the atoms in the exact same bar of iron through a blow and it goes from magnetic of non-magnetic. It didn't lose its extremely primitive mind.

Brains are metaphorically burning oxygen, literally using it to create energy. The difference is analogous to the difference between heated wood without oxygen and with oxygen. Suck the oxygen out of the air around a fire and it goes out. Oh, that fire must have a mind. Good to see you joining the panpsychists.

Block the sunlight from a plant and it can die, which means that all sorts of complicated process, including growth, movement of water in the xylem, and other process stop. But in IC's world the plant before the sun was blocked and after have the same matter, so the plant lost its mind.

Good to see you are an animist - who, yes, also see plants are conscious entities, capable of losing their minds, not just animals.

I'm dealing with someone who thinks that the form/arrangments and processes in matter have nothing to do with what that matter can do.

A tiny shift in how cells respond to insulin can lead to blindness and death. BUT THE MATTER IS THE SAME. Well, yeah, in the main it is, but the arrangements and the micro level - exactly parallel to the changes the trivial loss of oxygen to a brain - have changed very slightly and the whole organism no longer works, potentially at all, even though nearly the matter is the same. We're not crude matter like billiard balls on a Newtonian pool table - nor are algae and trees and even magnets. Slight changes in arrangment and process can lead to huge changes in function loss or change.

You leave the cap on your camera and take all the pictures you like, you get no changes in the film. Even though everything inside the camera is the same matter - though to the photograph that same unexposed film is radically different from the exposed film he was hoping was there and wasn't when he gets to the developer. The camers didnt' lose it's mind.

You live ina world run in many ways by computers and yet somehow you think you have a gotcha argument. You fail to connect the dots.

A single software glitch in your car, a single malfunctioning sensor - on the parking brake or fuel injection or transmission control module or Throttle Position Sensor or Exhaust or Emissions Control and your car stops doing EVERYTHING. IC steps out of his car on the highway and screams - my car is dead and it's mind has gone. When someone points out that even a tiny malfunction in a single sensor could have led it shutting down, IC says what, that's trivial, that's like saying oxygen is mind. (HUH????) The matter in the car is all the same as before.

Let alone you car's software gets hacked or has a problem.

The matter in a functional computer or car or one of those modern 'smart' vaccuum cleaners is the same and the non-function......
at least at the gross level. But the tiny changes in the states of matter, the sequences of what programmers think of as 1s and zeros, can lead to a dead computer and one that can pay your bills, turn on each week your vaccuum cleaner so it cleans while you're at work, etc. Hell, a single computer in a factory can be running automatically a wide ranges of processes, all visible to lay people and the naked eye, and a tiny changes in the states of the matter inside the computer can stop the entire thing dead.

IC: Oh, no Jim, the factory lost it's mind, it's soul. The matter in the computer is all the same.

But there's computer virus.

[Who cares, the matter is the same.

But there's a programming problem we got with the update.

Look at the damn computer, it's the same matter. It's as if you think the changes in brains deprived of oxygen are changes in matter, ha, ha!!!!!!!Computers have minds that are not matter and this proves it.

Look IC it's fine that you weren't convinced and surely are not now that your argument had a problem.
What's not fine is the way you fail to actually demonstrate ANYTHING.
You make short gestural statements or questions that convey smugness, incredulity and implied or stated assertions.
Without supporting those assertions.
Without really interacting with the other person's argument.

Without the self-congratulatory smugness and incredulity, you might be an ok discussion partner. OK.
You wanna up your game a notch from there: actually mount an argument. Actually say what you are implying and then justify it.
Perhaps you'll notice then that it's not so obvious or even easy to justify. Further you'll be an equal partner in the discussion either way.

I'm actually very critical of materialism. Hell we might even have been allies in a discussion with a materialist or physicalist. I'm not even saying your conclusion is wrong, but your argument isn't even an argument yet. And the implied argument is wrong. Even VA at least pretends to mount arguments and sometimes with interesting links.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 6:22 am As I noted to Phyllo, yes, that does sound familiar. But when you are posting in 3 different philosophy forums, it's easy to lose track of what you posted and where. Not that any of this can in and of itself be pinned down as autonomous or not.

OK, maybe you have dementia. I'm serious, not being insulting. I posted here links to where I made the arguments in the two forums we meet in. I gave you the links. You openly said you weren't going to bother:

And all I asked of others here is that -- click -- if their own memory is still largely intact, would they please attempt to note what they themselves believe you were attempting to convey with that example.

I gave you the links to the two posts in a row in this thread where I presented a concrete example with argument and the first post in ILP where i did this. You chose NOT to follow the links, but want me to rewrite the arguments here for you. In both forums you chose not to respond. As I show in the other links in that post in the sequence in ILP. But you could ignore those other links and just go to the posts where I presented the argument...or not....

don't respond, whatever.......

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sat Oct 19, 2024 7:50 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 10:04 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:24 pm I already gave a list of material differences between dead brains and living brains.

Nope. You didn't. What are the "materials"?

Are you really going to suggest that oxygen = mind? (If it did, "air head" would be a compliment. )

...if you read the earlier post you'd see that oxygen was one many material changes.

So it's not oxygen, where "mind" is located. You name other changes, too...which one of them is the one that accounts for "mind"?

The toaster is unplugged and the owner thinks that it has lost its mind.

Only if he's mentally ill. It's a mechanical device. It never had a mind. What it had was "electricity." And surely we're not going to mistake electricity for mind -- anymore than we're going to mistake mind for oxygen or amino acids for it, right?

You are the kind of arguer who keeps his arguments gestural. One line 'ripostes'.

Au contraire: I'm one of the longer responders...when there's something substantial that deserves treatment.

You are at the implicit assertion level, coupled with an appeal to incredulity.

Implicit assertions are what philosophical inquiry is all about...it always asks, "Where does the logic of your argument take you." And if that issues in incredulity...well, so be it. Maybe the argument is of the kind that warrants incredulity.

Change slightly the arrangement of amino acids in brain proteins and you get Alzheimers or Prion disease. All the matter is the same, but it has changed arrangement at microscopic levels.

Well, we can't say "mind" = amino acids. But if not, which other "changed arrangement" accounts for the existence of mind?

Really, I think we can simplify your argument: that there seems to be some coordination between brain and mind. And nobody doubts that there is. But you're assuming that the relationship is one of identity, not merely of coordination: and as the axiom goes, "Coincidence is not causality." The existence of a coordination between the brain and mind might indicate that they are the same: but it might equally indicate that they are merely coordinated; or it might even indicate that they are both coordinated with a third thing we have not named yet. There's no way to be sure of that, even if the coordination between brain and mind were identical.

And it's not. A person who has JUST died still has a brain. Other than, perhaps, a slight bit less oxygen, or a bit more carbon monoxide, or a contusion of some kind, the entirety of the brain matter is still present -- but "mind" is not. She is, as we say, "brain dead": the physiology remains, but the "spiritual" or "mental" element is gone. If brain and mind were identical, then that would not be the case. If brain and mind were even approximately identical, then some "mind" would still be present in the dead person. So the two are not identical, and observably so.

And we have other cases that underline that point, such as the case of people who have only a fragment of normal brain matter in their craniums, but who yet have all the normal mental functions. Those are quite a mystery to brain science, but it's a well-documented phenomenon.

Let me recommend Wilder Penfield's book, Mystery of the Mind. You'll find it quite helpful in this regard.

You live ina world run in many ways by computers and yet somehow you think you have a gotcha argument.

Ah, the old mistake: thinking computers are brains. They're not. There isn't even a reasonable analogy. No computer has "mind." In fact, the truth is that "intelligence," in reference to computers is just a metaphor. It's "artificial." It's not "intelligence." It's just more sophisticated operating of a strictly algorithmic kind -- sophisticated enough to fool ordinary people, but not related to any actual "mind" at all. It passes the Turing Test, maybe; but the Turing Test is just a measure of how easily humans can be fooled.

You may want to consider Searle's "Chinese Room" experiment. It's helpful with that.

I'm actually very critical of materialism. Hell we might even have been allies in a discussion with a materialist or physicalist.

Well, it's hard to see how you could want to defend Compatibilism, then. If there is such a thing as "mind," as distinct from the physical or material, then any attempt to reconcile will with Determinism is unnecessary. Things that are not material or physical are not subject to Deterministic explanations...at least, none with which I'm familiar...if you know a different argument, have at it.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 10:10 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Fri Oct 18, 2024 9:44 pm Really, note what I posted here that led you to believe that to me everyone is an unhiged objectivst.

On the other hand, it might instead be this: that the arguments I make in regard to meaning and morality and metaphysics...that human existence is essentially meaningless, that human morality is rooted existentially in dasein, that death is "the end" period, that free will is a psychological illusion...disturbs those here who [to me] seem hell bent on routing philosophy in the general direction of their very own One True Pat

Instead, I suggest that some embody objectivism becauue they were indoctrinated as children to believe that what they were told about the world around them is in fact the objective truth. Or, instead, given one or another set of uniquely personal experiences, they have come as adults to champion one moral and political and philosophical path [set of prejudices] over all the others.

And when you are in your frequent cataloguing mode, you use Wikipedia to make lists that include a majority of the members of the human race. When it is pointed out that many people with a wide range of beliefs, including those like Atla who share your beliefs on your pet issues, have the same reaction to you.

I think it's quite fair to consider hell bent to indicate unhinged. And you aim your judgments at most people on earth. And anyone who has an issue with how you post, you frame and necessarily afraid of your ideas and you as some threat to their fragile denials of their own, deep down belief in what you are saying.

Amen, I just didn't want to bother pointing this out anymore. Why does he keep forgetting what was said before?

Also, possible plot twist: maybe compared to Atla, even iambig is a closet objectivist? Let's see if he gets "disturbed" by the full package of non-objectivism.

Imo uncertainty seems to be the Achilles-heel of autistic philosophers like Kant and iambig. The right hemisphere is equipped to deal with uncertainty, but in their case some of the right hemisphere functionality is overridden by the left hemisphere, so they aren't well-equipped for it.

Criticising Strawson’s Compatibilism
Nurana Rajabova is wary of an attempt to dismiss determinism to keep free will

Now, in the third scenario, I refer to a similar incident, but this time caused by a human agent.

Just a reminder that, for particularly hard determinists, there could be 10 scenarios or 100 scenarios. In fact, every single one of us might embody our very own uniquely existential scenario.

So what?

If the laws of matter compel our brains to compel us to believe "in our heads" that we either have or do not have autonomy, what really changes?

Once again, the death of the child causes the same pain, and the same emotions or reactive attitudes. Yet here we immediately see the sense of claims of moral responsibility. However, even in such a case, the assigning of moral responsibility is not a straightforward consequence of the emotional reactions, and requires some other criteria to be met.

Suppose, however, the child's pain and our emotional reaction to it are...for whatever compelled reasons...part and parcel of Mother Nature's -- or God's? -- paint by numbers reflection of "that's just the way things are".

We don't hold the earthquake or the dog morally responsible because we presume there is no moral agency involved. And yet "somehow", it's presumed further, we acquired that. God say many. But not all. Now, most of what goes on inside our brains and inside our bodies do indeed obey the laws of matter autonomically. But the part where we evolved into civilizations able to invent science and philosophy and smart phones?

Given that a human being is already viewed as a moral agent, we can say that one of the criteria for moral responsibility is immediately met. However, this is not enough.

On the contrary say any number of objectivists, it is certainly enough for them. Not only do they themselves embody moral agency, but many will insist in turn that if you know what's good for you you'll embody it too. Become "one of us". Or else.